Dead city, vanishing self
My trainers scraping on the ground. I think to myself: I can’t normally hear this, but it takes some time for me to realise why that’s so odd. I register it, then the thought drifts away for a while, the reason is difficult to grab. Recently a full tangerine sun blazed above every hour, over streets of gossip and chatter, with the traffic’s steady clamour a panoramic backdrop.
There’s another thing I clock. The wind, like a November gale, one of those that can slice you in two, and it sweeps under my prickled skin and ices my bones. Midday. I’m dreaming of a lively thoroughfare, maybe even a quieter but not empty viewpoint, with attractive strangers around, and the sheer life in the chance to have a shared encounter, however fleeting. Daydreaming of the hope beyond the near distances.
current predicament
But it’s so remote, perhaps not even obtainable now with all future on pause, and I turn away from the hopeful thought to shield myself from the disappointment, the associated madness. I decide to focus on the now, and how I aim to steel myself for the dangers, both real and inevitable. That bizarre, weak sun somewhere overhead, a lingering reminder of our current predicament. Sometimes people wander past, but always quickly, and none of them look me or each other in the eye.
They are already ghosts. In turn, they render me one, as I slip further into the non-city, as I may as well be invisible. What about that unseen space? I fear it but it also offers a form of perverse escape. The deeper I go, the more I forget, and I go right in. Still that tinkling in my mind, about what happened to the heat. I feel chilled, almost dead. Another pretty girl flits past me and I’m killed a second time. Desire cuts me in two because I’m impotent, we all are now, the impotence made worse by the fact I can only muster a pathetic smile before continuing down the lane.
© Copyright 2021 John Maher